On Wednesday night, 700 Christchurch supporters sat down to view the documentary ‘When A City Falls’ in Brixton.

At every charity event, the organisers are justifiably credited and thanked. Somewhere amongst the speeches, a brief mention is made of the sponsors who make the event possible. And then they’re promptly forgotten... until our events need sponsorship again.

Trevor Sutton did an amazing job of organising the charity screenings but I’m sure he’d approve if a little more of the limelight fell on the people and organisations who backed him.

So without further ado, here are the sponsors of Christchurch: A Year On.

Some of them stumped up with cash, some with services and others with raffle prizes.

No doubt they all receive multiple queries to enter into event sponsoring and while they are given the opportunity to promote themselves, how many of us afford them our support?

We may not have a major engineering project to offer Opus (then again..) but Flat White make a great coffee, Walkabout are a great night out and Wild Garlic is destination dining at its best.

We don’t arrive in the UK to surround ourselves with New Zealand products or experiences but it would be churlish not to support these companies just because they, like us, are New Zealanders or retain ties to Aotearoa - GBK still help fund a kiwi recovery programme.

We all like to do our bit for Christchurch and similar tragedies but how many of us go out of our way to return the favour to the businesses that ensure these events happen? Challenge for the coming week: buy a Hell pizza, book a tour with TopDeck or choose one of the other sponsors above and do more than give them a pat on the back.

Your Comments:

left by flying kiwi26 Feb 2012

A good call from the editor!

left by Paul Macdonald28 Feb 2012

Nice to see recognition and support for sponsors. I would also like to add a worthy mention to Dominion Breweries who last year gave us (SANZA.co.uk) 100 cases of Tui to give away to fundraising activities.